08.26.02
6:30 a.m. CDT, Monday, August 26, 2002
Expedition Five Crew
STATUS REPORT: ISS02-38
INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION STATUS REPORT #02-38
Expedition Five Commander Valery Korzun and Flight Engineer Sergei
Treschev stepped outside the Pirs Docking Compartment of the
International Space Station today to swap out Japanese space exposure
experiments and a Russian experiment measuring jet thruster residue
on the exterior of the Zvezda Service Module in a 5 hour, 21 minute
spacewalk.
It was the second of two spacewalks for the Expedition Five crew, the
fourth of Korzun’s career and the first for Treschev.
Today’s excursion was the 43rd spacewalk in support of ISS
assembly and maintenance and the 18th staged from the station itself.
25 spacewalks at the ISS have originated from visiting space
shuttles. While Korzun and Treschev worked outside, Flight Engineer
Peggy Whitson tended to station systems and choreographed the
spacewalk from inside Zvezda.
Whitson and Korzun conducted a 4 hour, 25 minute spacewalk on August
16 to install six micrometeoroid debris shields on Zvezda.
After a slight delay to track down a small pressure leak across the
hatch between Zvezda and the Zarya module, Korzun and Treschev opened
the hatch to Pirs at 12:27 a.m. Central time (527 GMT) as the ISS
flew over Russia at an altitude of 235 statute miles. They went to
work right away, installing a frame on the Zarya as a “parking
place” for modular equipment to be temporarily stowed during
future ISS assembly spacewalks and hardware on Zarya which will
better route tethers for spacewalkers working around the Russian
segment of the station.
The two Russian spacewalkers then exchanged trays of experiments in
suitcase-like devices on Zvezda for NASDA, the Japanese Space Agency,
which measure the effect of the space environment on engineering
materials.
With that work accomplished, Korzun and Treschev completed a task left
over from the previous spacewalk ten days ago. They replaced an
experiment on the outside of Zvezda called Kromka, which measures the
amount of residue emitted from the module’s jet thruster
firings. Deflectors previously installed on Zvezda have significantly
reduced the buildup of residue on the hull of the module.
The final job for Korzun and Treschev was the installation of two
additional ham radio antennas on Zvezda to enhance amateur radio
operations in the future. ISS residents frequently conduct
conversations with “hams” back on Earth.
After retrieving their tools, Korzun and Treschev returned to Pirs and
closed the hatch at 5:48 a.m. Central time (1048 GMT) to wrap up
their excursion.
The next series of spacewalks to be conducted at the ISS is planned
for October when two shuttle astronauts, Dave Wolf and Piers Sellers,
conduct three excursions from the Quest Airlock on the STS-112
mission aboard Atlantis to help install and activate the S1
(Starboard One) truss segment, further expanding the station’s
backbone.
Information on the crew's activities aboard the space station, future
launch dates, as well as station sighting opportunities from anywhere
on the Earth, is available on the Internet at:
http://spaceflight.nasa.gov
Details on station science operations can be found on an Internet site
administered by the Payload Operations Center at NASA's Marshall
Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., at:
http://www.scipoc.msfc.nasa.gov
The next ISS status report will be issued on Friday, Aug. 30, or
sooner, if events warrant.
-end-